Here’s a challenge: Clean out the mailbox

E-mail productivity expert Marsha Egan has issued a “clean out your inbox” challenge.

She’s declared the week of Jan. 28 to be devoted to getting rid of the 350 or more messages most office workers have sitting in their inboxes.

.TXT has its own list of five key steps in de-cluttering the inbox of the average office worker. They are:

“Don’t forward messages unnecessarily to colleagues. Stop the madness.

“Keep messages short. Try to reduce the number of questions or issues being addressed in the message.

“Avoid resending jokes or odd videos. They just pile up and promote the recipient to return the favor.

“Don’t spend too long holding onto messages needing a reply. Figure out the response and send a reply. Then delete.

“Archive or back up messages older than six months. If you need to find something, just learn how to search the archive.